police intimidation, surveillance and misuse of stop and search powers characterised today's BP AGM at the oil festival hall in london. in an unprecedented and probably illegal move, BP stopped legitimate shareholders from entering their AGM on the suspicion that they 'might' cause trouble.
stop and search 1
stop and search 2
despite their own surveillance operation, police seemed curiously camera-shy
the excluded shareholders
huge ground level banner outside the hall
police used stop and search powers on almost anyone that moved around the royal festival hall today in an intimidatory operation to protect the BP AGM from protestors angry at the company's involvement in profiting from the iraq war; increasing carbon dioxide emissions; construction of a very controversial pipeline in Georgia; oil and construction projects in countries with terrible human rights records like west papua, colombia, and angola; ecologically disastrous developments in alaska, russia and the uk; and finally, while their boss lord browne pocketed £5m salary, their record on union rights, health and safety, and wages.
despite small numbers, the protest kept up a constant level of noise with a sound system providing activist songs between live acts and speakers, as well as some rousing samba from the rhythms of resistance band.
as well as the unwarranted and unreasonable searches, police created arbitrary and moving zones of exclusion for protestors, claiming their right to do so under section14, but failing to produce any map as required to show the areas concerned. they also used invasory surveillance, photographing every protestor there from every angle as well as videoing.
meanwhile, the real criminals were allowed to continue with impunity despite their 'threatening behaviour liable to cause alarm and distress' by meeting inside the festival hall to hear how much money they'd made out of all the destruction, oppression, and exploitation they'd supported.
in an unprecedented move the bp security barred from entry three peaceful campaigners who had travelled from Azerbaijan and Georgia despite their status as shareholders and their agreement to abide by all security arrangements.
a check with companies house this afternoon confirmed that bp had acted unlawfully, and so an official complaint will be lodged about this conduct, that companies administration will look into.
below is a transcript of a press release from various pressure groups about the incident:
PRESS RELEASE FROM:
Baku-Ceyhan Campaign
PLATFORM
Corner House
Friends of the Earth
Kurdish Human Rights Project
For immediate release 15 April 2004
BP Unprecedentedly Excludes Shareholders from Annual General Meeting
BP shareholders expressed outrage today as oil giant BP refused to allow
them to enter its Annual General Meeting (AGM).
The shareholders had come from Azerbaijan and Georgia to raise their
concerns about the hugely controversial Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline
directly with the BP Board of Directors.
But BP - in a move never seen before at a British company's AGM - refused
them entry, citing "security" concerns. This was despite the fact that the
shareholders had agreed to cooperate with security measures.
One of the shareholders, Mirvari Gahramanli, is Chair of the Committee for
Protection of Oil Workers' Rights in Azerbaijan. She has insisted that BP
immediately reinstate workers who have been sacked for complaining about
their working conditions, and stop discriminating against Azeri people.
Gahrahmanli noted, "The pipeline is being implemented in Azerbaijan without
any respect for human rights or national laws. BP must start to behave
responsibly, and compensate landowners for the land they have lost. And
they should treat Azeri workers in the same way they treat British and
American workers."
Mayis Gulaliyev, of the Monitoring Group for the Azerbaijan-Georgia-Turkey
Pipelines System, added, "In Azerbaijan, we are given no information and BP
ignores us - it only talks to organisations that unconditionally support the
pipeline. So we came from Azerbaijan, as shareholders in BP, to raise
our concerns about the pipeline. But here too BP has excluded us."
Mina Dadalauri, of Georgian group Green Alternatives, said, "Coming from the
situation in Georgia, where BP is preparing to build a pipeline through a
protected national park territory, I came to vote for the resolution to stop
BP from damaging the important territory. BP risks its reputation along
with our natural environment. But I was denied the chance to vote."
Greg Muttitt, of the environment group PLATFORM which is co-hosting the
shareholders, commented, "This is a completely unreasonable - and probably
illegal - move. UK company law requires companies to allow their
shareholders into an Annual General Meeting, as a key opportunity for them
to address the Board. Frankly, it makes BP look as though they have
something to hide from their own shareholders as well as the general
public."
For further information, contact:
Greg Muttitt, PLATFORM, 07970 589611
Anders Lustgarten, Baku-Ceyhan Campaign, 07973164363
Nicholas Hildyard, Corner House, 07773750534
Rochelle Harris, Kurdish Human Rights Project, 0207 2872772
from june 15 -21, pressure groups will be hosting an 'exhibition of resistance to bp and oil' alongside the bp-sponsored 'national portrait award' at the national portrait gallery. if you wish to contribute, please get in touch with london rising tide at
london@risingtide.org.uk
despite small numbers, the protest kept up a constant level of noise with a sound system providing activist songs between live acts and speakers, as well as some rousing samba from the rhythms of resistance band.
as well as the unwarranted and unreasonable searches, police created arbitrary and moving zones of exclusion for protestors, claiming their right to do so under section14, but failing to produce any map as required to show the areas concerned. they also used invasory surveillance, photographing every protestor there from every angle as well as videoing.
meanwhile, the real criminals were allowed to continue with impunity despite their 'threatening behaviour liable to cause alarm and distress' by meeting inside the festival hall to hear how much money they'd made out of all the destruction, oppression, and exploitation they'd supported.
in an unprecedented move the bp security barred from entry three peaceful campaigners who had travelled from Azerbaijan and Georgia despite their status as shareholders and their agreement to abide by all security arrangements.
a check with companies house this afternoon confirmed that bp had acted unlawfully, and so an official complaint will be lodged about this conduct, that companies administration will look into.
below is a transcript of a press release from various pressure groups about the incident:
PRESS RELEASE FROM:
Baku-Ceyhan Campaign
PLATFORM
Corner House
Friends of the Earth
Kurdish Human Rights Project
For immediate release 15 April 2004
BP Unprecedentedly Excludes Shareholders from Annual General Meeting
BP shareholders expressed outrage today as oil giant BP refused to allow
them to enter its Annual General Meeting (AGM).
The shareholders had come from Azerbaijan and Georgia to raise their
concerns about the hugely controversial Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline
directly with the BP Board of Directors.
But BP - in a move never seen before at a British company's AGM - refused
them entry, citing "security" concerns. This was despite the fact that the
shareholders had agreed to cooperate with security measures.
One of the shareholders, Mirvari Gahramanli, is Chair of the Committee for
Protection of Oil Workers' Rights in Azerbaijan. She has insisted that BP
immediately reinstate workers who have been sacked for complaining about
their working conditions, and stop discriminating against Azeri people.
Gahrahmanli noted, "The pipeline is being implemented in Azerbaijan without
any respect for human rights or national laws. BP must start to behave
responsibly, and compensate landowners for the land they have lost. And
they should treat Azeri workers in the same way they treat British and
American workers."
Mayis Gulaliyev, of the Monitoring Group for the Azerbaijan-Georgia-Turkey
Pipelines System, added, "In Azerbaijan, we are given no information and BP
ignores us - it only talks to organisations that unconditionally support the
pipeline. So we came from Azerbaijan, as shareholders in BP, to raise
our concerns about the pipeline. But here too BP has excluded us."
Mina Dadalauri, of Georgian group Green Alternatives, said, "Coming from the
situation in Georgia, where BP is preparing to build a pipeline through a
protected national park territory, I came to vote for the resolution to stop
BP from damaging the important territory. BP risks its reputation along
with our natural environment. But I was denied the chance to vote."
Greg Muttitt, of the environment group PLATFORM which is co-hosting the
shareholders, commented, "This is a completely unreasonable - and probably
illegal - move. UK company law requires companies to allow their
shareholders into an Annual General Meeting, as a key opportunity for them
to address the Board. Frankly, it makes BP look as though they have
something to hide from their own shareholders as well as the general
public."
For further information, contact:
Greg Muttitt, PLATFORM, 07970 589611
Anders Lustgarten, Baku-Ceyhan Campaign, 07973164363
Nicholas Hildyard, Corner House, 07773750534
Rochelle Harris, Kurdish Human Rights Project, 0207 2872772
from june 15 -21, pressure groups will be hosting an 'exhibition of resistance to bp and oil' alongside the bp-sponsored 'national portrait award' at the national portrait gallery. if you wish to contribute, please get in touch with london rising tide at
london@risingtide.org.uk
Comments
Hide the following 5 comments
Next time advertise this protest well in advance!
16.04.2004 08:15
protester
How to hear what London Rising Tide is up to
16.04.2004 08:41
This year's LRT action at the AGM wasn't given as much of a push as last year, when we put out tens of thousands of leaflets etc., and about 100 or so people made it.
A good way to stay in touch with what we're up to is to either get involved (we meet most thursday evenings at 62 fieldgate st, but get in touch to confirm), or send an email asking for occasional updates (about 2 per month).
You could also help us raise a few urgently-needed quid by coming to the Synergy club night on April 24th. WHEN YOU BOOK, PLEASE QUOTE CODE 'RT005', AND LONDON RISING TIDE GET £3 PER TICKET.
The Synergy Project
Saturday April 24th 2004
SEOne, Weston Street, London SE1 10pm-8am
Tickets £15 (£10 concs door), £13 + booking fee in advance
More info 07766 5666691,
Here's our AGM leaflet text - look out for our next major project mentioned at the end:
WHAT’S RIGHT WITH BP?
Last year, London Rising Tide (LRT) 'celebrated' BP's Annual General Meeting by holding a Carnival Against Oil Wars & Climate Chaos outside. Several concerned members of the public also entered the meeting to make absolutely sure their concerns hadn't been swamped by the high tide of toxic greenwash that had flooded the South Bank for the day.
12 months have now passed, and what have we seen..?
* BP, Shell, ExxonMobil and all the other big oil companies profiting handsomely from the murderous, deceit-ridden war in Iraq;
* fossil fuel-induced climate chaos hitting Europe in August, killing tens of thousands of mostly older people in record-breaking temperatures. ‘Be more tomorrow than we are today’ trumpets BP emptily in this year’s Annual Report. Can we really survive in its bleak future? (
* construction began on BP's Baku-Ceyhan pipeline, becoming an enormous embarrassment, proving the company's green and socially responsible rhetoric to be nothing but top dollar public relations. Don’t take our word for it: even the Sunday Times and the Daily Mail are saying it - (www.baku.org.uk)
* BP’s oil & gas operations throughout the world, eg. in Colombia (www.colombiasolidarity.org.uk/), West Papua (www.jatam.org/english/case/bt/), Alaska (www.alaskaactioncenter.org), Russia, Angola and even here in the UK continued to cause destitution, ecological devastation and climatic havoc;
* as BP oilworkers saw their personal safety, union rights and wages in tatters (www.oilc.org/), BP boss Lord Browne watched his own salary soar to £5m.
LRT is taking action today partly against BP, but also as part of an ongoing campaign to persuade the OFH, sometimes known as the People's Palace, not to shut its doors to the public for the day in exchange for BP's hefty fee, and to cancel next year's BP booking. How about replacing it with a free public event showing what a fossil fuel free future could look like, with loads of bands performing with a (non-corporate) renewably-powered PA?
Next stop for LRT is an ‘Exhibition of Resistance to BP and Big Oil’, running from June 15th-21st 2004. This series of actions and events will run alongside the BP-sponsored National Portrait Award (at London’s National Portrait Gallery), and reveal a far truer portrait of an oil company. Once it was OK for a cigarette firm to sponsor the NPA – now it’s time for all of us to use our creativity to kick Big Oil out of our museums and galleries…(and then get rid of them altogether). Get in touch to find out more or to let us know what you might contribute.
Thanks for reading, and keep on doing what you can for peace, justice, the environment and the long-term survival of our planet.
London Rising Tide: 07969 786770
c/o 62 Fieldgate Street, London E1 1ES
www.londonrisingtide.org.uk (under construction)
www.burningplanet.net
See also Rising Tide UK: www.risingtide.org.uk
www.nonewoil.org & www.carbonweb.org/
Baz
oil industry addresses
17.04.2004 19:19
fuckwit
Expanded feedback from the day
17.04.2004 21:10
This report steals the initial text above and adds all kinds of other stuff on top...
BP AGM fills Oil Festival Hall with sickly smell of greenwash, 15.04.04, while angry protesters dream of fossil fuel-free future
Police used stop and search powers on almost anyone that moved around the Oil Festival Hall (OFH) on April 15th in an intimidatory operation to protect the BP AGM from protestors angry at the company's profiting from the Iraq war; increasing carbon dioxide emissions; construction of the very controversial Baku-Ceyhan pipeline; oil and construction projects in countries with terrible human rights records like West Papua, Colombia, and Angola; ecologically disastrous developments in Alaska, Russia and the UK; and finally, while their boss Lord Browne pocketed a £5m salary, their despicable record on union rights, health and safety, and wages.
Despite small numbers, the protest kept up a constant level of noise with a sound system providing activist songs between live acts and speakers, as well as some rousing samba from the Rhythms of Resistance band. As well as London Rising Tide, there was a presence from the Colombia Solidarity Campaign, Platform and London Earth First!, as well as several other friends.
As well as the unwarranted and unreasonable searches, police created arbitrary and moving zones of exclusion for protestors, claiming their right to do so under section14, but failing to produce any map as required to show the areas concerned. They also used invasory surveillance, photographing every protestor there from every angle as well as videoing. One small consolation was the clear annoyance of the policeman in charge at BP's heavy-handed behaviour. 'If BP aren't letting people in, then the least they can do is come over and explain to those people directly - that's not our job', is pretty much what he said.
Meanwhile, the real criminals were allowed to continue with impunity despite their 'threatening behaviour liable to cause alarm and distress' by meeting inside the festival hall to hear how much money they'd made out of all the destruction, oppression, and exploitation they'd supported.
In an unprecedented move the BP security barred from entry three four campaigners who had travelled from Azerbaijan and Georgia despite their status as proxy shareholders and their agreement to abide by all security arrangements. This action perfectly revealed BP in its true light, providing almost all the national daily papers with a nice angle into the bargain. (Interestingly enough, the press chose to run also with the very compelling story of US oilworkers who had travelled to the meeting, or with the attempts of the oleaginous BP Chairman Peter Sutherland to distance the company from the scandal over exaggerated oil reserves currently engulfing Shell. So the issue of climate change and the presence of London Rising Tide, underlined by press releases, a huge spoof BP Ultimate banner, 1000 leaflets and several conversations with journalists, was completely overlooked, as it was in 2003. Is this an accident, or possibly another sign of establishment denial of the gravity of the current situation as well as the credible, movement-based ways to address it? Answers on a postcard please to LRT...)
A check with Companies House confirmed that BP had acted unlawfully, and so an official complaint will be lodged about this conduct, for companies administration will look into. Below is a transcript of a press release from various pressure groups about the incident.
Inside, a meek shareholder resolution asking the company to respect wildernesses received a pitiful 6.5% support, and those dissenting voices that had made it in to tell the truth about Baku-Ceyhan and Colombia were schmoozed and/or insulted by Sutherland...that is until the final moments, when one woman persistently and bravely held her ground by insisting on her right to speak about the company's actual record, as well as the inherent rightfulness of interrupting the BP fatcats' attempt to smoothe everything over and send sleepy septuagenarian shareholders to their freebie lunchboxes. (As well as their lunchbox, every shareholder received a slim, trendy, boutique-style bag in which they found some really classy merchandise: vouchers for a free car wash and free coffee at the 'Wild Bean Cafe', a BP biro, BP windscreen-scraper & BP 'Climate Unleashed' - sorry, 'Ultimate Unleaded' - key ring. Everyone's a winner at the BP AGM.)
So all in all it was a pretty successful day where a few new faces made contact and seemed keen to get involved. For LRT it was another step in the slow but hopefully useful strategy of making BP persona non grata in London's top cultural institutions. It had hung an 'Oil Festival Hall' banner off the building a few days earlier (until a security guard said it we might be causing a diversion allowing terrorists to do their dastardly business in another part of the building), as well as leafletting OFH workers, many of whom would support the campaign more openly if they didn't fear for their jobs - a worldwide scenario, that one.
Next stop for LRT is an 'Exhibition of Resistance to BP and Big Oil', running from June 15th-21st 2004. This series of actions and events will run alongside the BP-sponsored National Portrait Award (at London's National Portrait Gallery), and reveal a far truer portrait of an oil company. Once it was OK for a cigarette firm to sponsor the NPA - now it's time for all of us to use our creativity to kick Big Oil out of our museums and galleries…(and then get rid of them altogether). Get in touch with LRT to find out more or to say what you might be able to contribute.
Thanks for reading, and keep on doing what you can for peace, justice, the environment and the long-term survival of our planet.
London Rising Tide: 07969 786770
c/o 62 Fieldgate Street, London E1 1ES
www.londonrisingtide.org.uk (under construction)
www.burningplanet.net
See also Rising Tide UK: www.risingtide.org.uk
www.nonewoil.org & www.carbonweb.org/
Lazy LRT-er
BP AGM ends in shambles
18.04.2004 09:48
No amount of money could save BP on 15 April from the downward spiral into which their AGM has fallen thanks to the attentions of campaigners from all over the world plus London Rising Tide and friends.
While outside the Festival Hall protest against BP's littany of human rights and environmental crimes flowed undeterred by heavy security, inside the company's big PR event steadily fell apart.
A succession of damning points were made by members of the audience - displacement in Colombia, impending devastation in Alaska, breach of myriad agreements along the BTC pipeline, greed on the part of the directors with their obscene "compensation". These were ignored, mocked or flatly denied by the fat cat in the chair, who did however become increasingly riled and uncomfortable.
Alas for that stageful of crooks, no applause, no self congratulatory smiles all round, no relief as the end of proceedings arrived. Sutherland's speech was drowned out by a furious protester cateloguing BP,s crimes, adding complicity in war (the board's links with BAE had been frankly celebrated in an opening speech), brutality and ecological disaster in West Papua and climate change.
Earlier, Browne had delivered one of his characteristic portentious meaningless speeches against a background of glam projections, including "meeting the challenges of climate change".No reference in the entire proceedings, however, to how BP's commitment to pumping out the rest of the world's 40 year reserves of oil will do this, no other reference to climate change at all in fact.
So it was fitting that BP's big day out should end in a hail of denunciation from the floor, sour faced directors leaving the stage in ignominy, hardly a word of Sutherland's address having got across.
Good on everybody who made this such a bad day for BP in so many ways.
Redwing